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Thursday, February 18, 2016

Yep. I arrived five minutes late. As usual. But this time...

I saw only one car in the lot! Where were you, lads?!

I pulled into the lot, and there was one lone car. And one lone guy sitting in the car. So...

Tunes for Two...and Two for Tunes!

John and I went inside. But first I got coffee across the street. It's nice when the "whole group" can just walk across to Stewart's and grab a cuppa.

Anyway, I figured if anyone else came late, we'd be there, so we just started looking at the new lists of tunes I put up, and poking around on my tablet at the new Mailchimp reminder I sent out yesterday. Sign up for our NewsletterDid you all see it? I pestered the crap out of everybody this month, so there's no excuse for you not to have seen the email. And by the way, I can NOT believe that none of you even clicked on a single video link.

What do you think those things are there for, anyway?

Because no one else came, John got a 90 minute $4 private lesson. You guys gave him this awesome gift. You're so nice...

Yep. You sure did! 90 minutes of relaxed one-on-one tune time. It was great! But we did miss you. We really did. Even though you weren't there, we went over Joe Bane's reel. Then we worked on Drunken Landlady. [Get the M4A here] Then we reviewed Joe Bane's barndance, which we've been working on together for the past few weeks. (By the way, it's Joe BANN, not Joe Bain. Thanks!) Good stuff. I've uploaded the mp4s for all three tunes. Tomorrow I should have the sound files for the jig set. Oh, yeah, Caroline - I found the music again for Gentle Maiden!

I found the music for Gentle Maiden because I went through ALL my music to find the old tune lists from Slow Sessions past...

Gary M. has long been my hero because of his extensive binder of sheet music from our sessions. Patricia Kernan had boxes of binders with sheet music for her jam session at the State Museum. It was great for folks who just happened to show up but didn't know the tunes. Soon, the Slow Session will have reference binders. Yes. You heard me. Do not make me say it again.

But anyway, because while I'd love to move completely away from sheet music, it seems to be the fastest way to get people up to speed because folks come and go. There's just never the same batch of people with the same interests in tunes, so sheet music is the short hand.

Speaking of short hand - did you notice I included ABCs this time in the tune selection? While they are formatted for a translator, I figured people who don't read sheet music can still use them. I'll be including them from now on for new tunes. It remains to be seen whether I'll get to all the old tunes or not. Still, I think that will be a handy way for people who don't read spots to get the gist of the tunes.

I do expect that this spring will see the creation of an Old Songs Slow Session tunebook - the best of the best, so to speak. Stay tuned for that. That's going to be my Slow Session anniversary present to myself. And you. Of course, it's always about you, my lovely tune-friends!

What tunes will we do next time? The Spring Tunes. The Fall Tunes. Even tunes with spots...

Ahem. Yes, I'm weird. OK, listen, on Wednesday I dug up some old tune lists from past sessions, I mean like TEN YEARS WORTH of tunes! Do you realize the Old Songs Slow Session has been around for TEN YEARS? We should have a class reunion or something. Should we? Anyone want to have a party?

Those tune lists are now up on the Session Tune List 2005-2013 page. While I haven't quite decided what to do with them, I'm going to be doing some formatting on them so they'll be searchable on your desktop (PC users click ctrl+f and then type a tune name in the search box and it'll show you all the instances of the tune name through the years. Mac users. Eh. You're on your own.). Let me know in the comments below what you'd like to see in terms of formatting and useability of those tune lists. I could really use some ideas!

Those tunes, Hilary?

Oh yeah, right! Sorry...sidetracked. Yeah. In March, we'll play some of the tunes from last spring, and all the tunes from last fall, plus work on the new tunes for this year. I'll have those lists on the 2015-2016 Repertoire Page in the next day or so. For the "Round Robin" session portion of the slow session in March, you can now reference and print out Comhaltas Learning Session tune lists - one from 2008, and one from 2016. Also, I've uploaded a pretty comprehensive downloadable Old Songs Slow Session Tune List from 2008, and our 75 Common Session Tunes list for the Capital Region of New York. (That one probably needs to be updated.)

OK, see you next month - Slow Session is scheduled for Wednesday, March 16, 2016 at 7:30 p.m. And keep an eye out for the Slow Sesh March Newsletter at the beginning of the month.

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Slow Session

This blog is for the monthly Irish slow session held at the Old Songs Community Arts Center, 37 South Main St., Voorheesville, NY 12186. Session on Third Wednesday, 7:30-9:00 pm (except July and August), $4 suggested donation to Old Songs for heat/air conditioning/light/photocopies, etc. Led by Irish fiddler Hilary Schrauf.